Here is an excerpt from the Washington Post:

Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun.
Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is
sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments and rethink its
principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is
hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination.
And where Barack Obama, already naturally inclined to believe his
own loftiness, graciously accepted the kingly crown and proceeded to
ride his reelection success to a crushing victory over the GOP at the fiscal cliff, leaving a humiliated John Boehner & Co. with nothing but naked tax hikes.
Thus emboldened, Obama turned his inaugural and State of the Union
addresses into a left-wing dream factory, from his declaration of war
on global warming (on a planet where temperatures are the same as 16
years ago and in a country whose CO2 emissions are at a 20-year low) to
the invention of new entitlements — e.g., universal preschool for
5-year-olds— for a country already drowning in debt.
To realize
his dreams, Obama sought to fracture and neutralize the congressional
GOP as a prelude to reclaiming the House in 2014. This would enable him
to fully enact his agenda in the final two years of his presidency,
usually a time of lame-duck paralysis. Hail the Obama juggernaut.
Well, that story — excuse me, narrative — lasted exactly six months. The Big Mo is gone.